Rural Proofing

Introduction

The concept and process of rural proofing was introduced in the Government’s Rural White Paper, published in November 2000. In short, rural proofing means looking for the rural dimension to policies and service delivery, and how these should be addressed. More precisely, rural proofing means that as policies and programmes are developed and implemented, policy makers should systematically:

Think about whether there will be any significant differential impacts in rural areas
If there are such impacts, assess what these might be
Consider what adjustments/compensations might be made

Where it is considered that the impact in rural areas will be significantly different, it is important to explore policy/delivery options, to produce the desired outcomes in rural areas, and to avoid or mitigate any undesirable impacts. Where there is uncertainty or a potentially different or worse impact, this should be investigated further and included in any overall assessment of the costs and benefits.

BRAF has three aims in carrying out rural-proofing:

Ensuring equitable delivery in urban and rural areas
For urban interventions, ensuring that there are no unintended negative impacts on rural communities
Identifying if there are specific rural issues/priorities and meeting those specific needs.

Most important is that a rural-proofing report is not an end in itself but only a tool. A policy or service is only really rural-proofed when recommendations are translated into actions.

A number of toolkits to help policy makers and deliverers carry out rural-proofing are available. Click here

BRAF's rural-proofing reports can be downloaded from this page.

Local Area Agreement for Bedfordshire

A Local Area Agreement (LAA) is a three year agreement that sets out the priorities for a local area and is agreed between Central Government and public sector services. The aim is to get local authorities, the health service, police and the voluntary and community sector to join up effectively to improve the lives of people living and working in Bedfordshire. More on the Bedfordshire LAA.

In summer 2007, BRAF was commissioned by Bedfordshire County Council to carry out a quick study to help inform the refresh process of the Local Area Agreement by reviewing evidence of rural need and making recommendations for key issues, relevant to the LAA context, for inclusion in years 2 and 3. A full rural-proofing or comprehensive review of the evidence was not feasible in the time available. Instead, the study was limited to a review of the current BRAF strategic priorities, the priorities evidenced in Defra's Rural Social and Communities Programme, and the priorities that came out of the BRAF conference in October 2004 “What future rural Bedfordshire?”, which was attended by around 130 stakeholders. The report makes links to LAA priorities and makes recommendations on what key rural issues might be addressed in the LAA.

Download BRAF report on the LAA

As a consequence of the report, the role of parish plans as a means of empowering local people is under discussion for inclusion in the refreshed LAA.

Investing in Communities Plan for Bedfordshire and Luton

Investing in Communities (IiC) was launched in 2003 by the East of England Development Agency (EEDA). IiC is intended to be founded on strategic, needs-based, long-term planning at a regional and sub-regional level. It aims to achieve this through encouraging partnerships to better coordinate the public sector funding available to tackle disadvantage and exclusion across the region, leading to long-term community regeneration.

The sub-regional business plan for Bedfordshire and Luton aims to support and deliver part of the Regional Economic Strategy, particularly:

Supporting those who are disadvantaged to achieve their potential
Supporting disadvantaged communities and groups to access sustainable employment opportunities
Improving prospects for better quality employment
Providing improved access to essential services
Tackling discrimination experienced by communities or individuals

A Business Plan, initially covering the period 2005-2008 was submitted to EEDA in December 2005 with five intervention areas identified from the evidence base. These were:

Work Limiting Illness/Employability
Adult Skills and Training
Transition from School to Employment
Social Enterprise
Children and Education

BRAF was commissioned by Bedfordshire and Luton Economic Development Partnership in summer 2007 to carry out a rural-proofing study of the 2005-08 business plan to help inform the future development of the IIC programme in Bedfordshire.

BRAF sees rural-proofing as a way of ensuring that the IIC plan can better achieve EEDA’s aspirations to tackle disadvantage wherever it occurs and to integrate rural issues into its main areas of activity. It is also about improving service delivery by looking at how generic, countywide interventions can be more effective in rural areas. There are significant concentrations of deprivation in some of Bedfordshire’s urban areas – one of Luton’s wards is in the top 5% of most deprived wards nationally, while 2 Luton Wards and 1 Bedford ward are within the top 10%. Nevertheless, it is important to recognise that there are people living in rural Bedfordshire experiencing multiple deprivation and social exclusion although they do not show up in the statistics. Rural-proofing aims to achieve some equitable access to funding to tackle this dispersed deprivation and to tackle rural needs.

Download BRAF report on the IIC business plan

Community Plans

In 2003, BRAF commissioned consultants, working with support and input from BRAF members, to “rural-proof” the community plans produced by Bedfordshire Local Strategic Forum and the three district Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs). The work looked at how the plans were prepared, how rural interests were represented on the LSPs, the extent to which the plans might have an impact on rural Bedfordshire and how far such impacts had been considered and incorporated into the plans.